


A Very Responsible Babysitter

by AnUnexpectedMuffin



Series: Birds of a Feather [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-08 00:48:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3189548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnUnexpectedMuffin/pseuds/AnUnexpectedMuffin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a small world after all, at least if you're a superhero with a circus background. Also, a bedside lamp meets a tragic and untimely end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Very Responsible Babysitter

 

_“—And the sheer number of credible eyewitness accounts make it very hard, John, to discount this as an urban legend. We turn now to Cindy, who’s been covering the “Spider-man” story, for her take on the mysterious Nightwing—”_

“Natasha?”

_“—You have reached Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. No one is able to come to the phone right now, but if you leave a message after the tone we will get back to you at our earliest convenience—”_

“Nat?”

Natasha Romanov, commonly known as The Most Dangerous Woman In The World, put her head in her hands and screamed. She was never going to have kids if _this_ was what finding a sitter was like. (Not that she was going to _tell_ Clint Barton, Who Can Kill You With Ancient Weaponry Or A Spork, that he needed a babysitter.)

Doom and his stupid robots. He’d gone and decided to send a giant mechanical dragon to attack New York, which in Natasha’s opinion was a wussy thing to do, since the city was still a mess after Loki hit it. And indeed, all the giant mechanical dragon had managed to do before Clint got off a lucky shot, pierced the armor, and exploded its interior was catch a couple of trees and Thor’s cape on fire. The other Avengers had been pleasantly surprised to discover that Asgardians knew to stop, drop, and roll. Except Clint, who had been leaping off a building at the time, so he could get his one clear shot at the dragon’s underside (Tony Stark was fast becoming convinced that Clint really _was_ a refugee from Tolkien’s books).

And of course, the dragon managed to melt the asphalt where it (and Hawkeye) landed, and belch noxious orange smoke when it (and Hawkeye) landed. Clint had landed in S.H.E.I.L.D. medical with two burnt feet and a severe case of hallucinating pink elephants, as Tony had helpfully put it. Clint had called him and idiot, as the elephants were _clearly_ lavender. The medics had been hard pressed to actually do anything (besides fix up his feet), since nobody knew what was in the smoke (and since Clint Barton hated hospitals and had managed to put an arrow in two doctors and an anesthesiologist before Natasha got to him), so they gave him to the Avengers (well, more like threw him at them and fled), and Natasha took him home ( _his_ home, she was never again letting a slightly loopy archer near her hand-blown glass flower collection) and prepared to spend another long night listening to her partner argue with his rock garden.

The problem was that Natasha _now_ needed to be in the seediest part of New York in an hour, or a carefully laid, long term operation against a smuggling ring would come to nothing. And there was literally nobody to watch a certain archer who was getting better (he was no longer convinced his bedside lamp was plotting against him, although that could simply be because Natasha had moved it to the living room) but was certainly in no position to be left alone, else he would end up in an air duct, get lost, and lead Natasha to dismantle an entire building.

Steve hadn’t answered his phone, which wasn’t worrying, because he never remembered to charge it. A call to Stark tower had gotten Pepper, who was helping Tony chase down and catch all the remote controls he’d absentmindedly given a hive consciousness and wings (“You know that scene in _Harry Potter_ with the keys?” Pepper had asked by way of explanation). Bruce was somewhere in Canada (“I think the Other Guy just needed a walk. Oh, hi Logan. No, I’m _fine_ up in this tree—oh, you didn’t have to scare the grizzly away like _that_ …”), Phil Coulson was still in the hospital recovering from Loki and plotting revenge for his desecrated Captain America trading cards, Thor and Jane were pop-tart shopping, the Fantastic Four had discovered a wormhole and fallen in, and even the X-Men were unavailable (Kitty Pride had, according to Fury, proven her worth the one time the Avengers were regressed to kindergarteners. Natasha didn’t remember that incident very well, but she had vague memories of Tony Stark pulling her hair, and playing dress up with a surprisingly sweet Bruce Banner). Natasha was seriously considering taking Tony Stark up on his offer of letting them all move in to the tower, since at least then she could have left JARVIS in charge, but sadly there was no way she was going to get Clint into a car right now.

_—many similarities between the so called “Spider-man” and “Nightwing”, which could mean that—_

“Tashaaaaa!”

“ _What_ is it?” Natasha wandered into the bedroom and glared at her partner, although there wasn’t any venom in it. He was scowling at the television (late night news, they were doing a special on Nightwing) as if it had done him personal wrong.

“They’re _wrong_!” 

Natasha wasn’t sure why this was upsetting him so. When it came to what Phil referred to happily as “superheroes”, the news stations were laughably under-informed. Most still thought she worked for the Russian Mafia. She’d _never_ worked for the Russian Mafia. She pointed out as much. (Well, not the part about the Russian Mafia, Clint already _knew_ about the Russian Mafia.)

“ _No,_ Nat, look at the way he moves—it’s totally different from Spiderman!”

“Um-hum”. She absently fluffed his pillow. “Clint, can you promise me you’ll stay right here and not shoot anything until I get back?”

“Nat! It’s Richard!”

“That’s the Fantastic Four you’re thinking of.”

“Nooo! _Richard,_ not Richards!”

Tap, tap, tap.

They both froze. Two highly trained assassins do not normally have much to worry about in terms of home break-ins, except cleaning the mess up afterwards and explaining said mess to the neighbors, but then, nobody should have gotten past Clint’s booby traps and been in any shape to tap politely on the window. Muttering under her breath in Russian, Natasha got up and stalked to the window, guns in hand. Clint grabbed his knife and pulled the covers over his head.

“Hi!” said Nightwing, perched easily on Clint’s favorite window ledge. “I was wondering if you knew Kingpin’s underlings are having a meeting tonight.” He grinned hopefully at them.

Wordlessly, Natasha opened the window and let him in, resolving to have a good look at Clint’s security cameras sometime soon, since not only had Nightwing managed to bypass everything, but he was sitting on a motion sensor without making it go off.

“There’s a way to distribute your weight evenly that scrambles the sensors,” Nightwing explained as he swung himself into the room with an easy summersault, correctly guessing her unspoken question. Once inside, the light from the Clint-hating table lamp picked up slightly more of his features, and Natasha could suddenly see that Nightwing was young, _very_ handsome, and extremely well armed. And for some reason he reminded her a lot of Steve. Perhaps it was the sheer All-American Goodness that seemed to emanate off him. Well, Natasha was not going to be lulled into a false sense of security, especially with a wounded agent in the adjourning bedroom. She folded her arms.

“Why are you here?”

“Well…I kind of wanted to, um, see how Clint was?” Nightwing fidgeted. He really _was_ a darker haired, cheerier version of Steve Rogers.

“You know Clint Barton?”

“Well… we haven’t actually _seen_ each other in years. But I _know_ he has to be Hawkeye—”

“Why?” Natasha demanded, because that was not a line of reasoning she wanted to encourage in the general population.

“Because I know both Green Arrow and Arsenal, _and_ the League keeps track of them, so I know they weren’t in New York when it was attacked. And I only know one other person who could possibly use a bow like Hawkeye does, and that’s Clint Barton.” Natasha continued to glare at him.

“See, I _told_ you!” From the bedroom came the unmistakable sound of the most skilled archer in S.H.I.E.L.D falling out of bed. “Nightwing is Richard Grayson!”

Nightwing sighed. “Dad’s going to have my _head_ for this,” he groaned, then tugged off his mask.

Ok, Natasha had to admit this was a little unfair. He had the most adorable blue puppy-dog eyes she’d ever seen. But more to the point, she did indeed recognize him. That didn’t explain why _Hawkeye_ recognized him.

“ _How,”_ She demanded, “Do you expect me to believe the ward of Bruce Wayne knows a man who grew up in the _circus_?” She’d seen Richard Grayson from afar before, after all, while she was investigating someone who moved in Wayne’s social circle. But then, she’d never gotten close. S.H.I.E.L.D avoided the Wayne family on principal, since strange things happened to organizations that went after Bruce or any of his adopted sons.

“I grew up in the circus.” Richard said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I’m Bruce’s adopted son, remember? Clint used to babysit me so Mom and Dad could have an afternoon off.”

This, more than anything, floored Natasha.

“ _Babysit you?”_

“Mr. and Mrs. Grayson were nice.” Clint said, wandering into the living room, still wrapped in his comforter and armed to the teeth, “And they fed me, too.” He suddenly noticed the lamp in the corner, and his still-recovering brain recognized it as a threat.

Natasha suddenly realized she desperately needed to get out the door and to her rendezvous point. She groaned. “All right. _You,_ ” She pointed to Richard, who was already trying to separate Clint and the lamp, “I should be home in a couple of hours; I’ll pay you when I get back; help yourself to what’s in the fridge if you dare, cause I think the ketchup is alive by now; and whatever he says don’t let Clint have his bow back. Now I’ve really got to go!”

She came back, tired and a bit singed (darn Hydra weapons) to a surprisingly un-destroyed house, Clint fast asleep (on the headboard of his bed, but still…), and a crime-fighting vigilante watching Cartoon Network.

“Everything go ok?” She asked, as he asked, “Get them all?”

“Yeah.” She said. “It was easy enough. They seemed pretty spooked.”

Nightwing sighed. “You might see more of that in the coming months, I’m pretty sure Red Hood’s moving into the area. He’s…tough on the criminal element.” For a moment he looked grave and a bit lost, like Steve did when he was talking about Bucky. Then he mentally shook himself. “Anyway, I didn’t have any trouble. We watched TV for a bit, I made him some hot chocolate, and he eventually drifted off to sleep.” (Richard didn’t seem to think falling asleep on the headboard was in any way odd, and Natasha would puzzle over this until she met Alfred Pennyworth at a Wayne charity gala and discovered that “Master Richard” slept on _his_ headboard more often than not) “Oh, and I’m awful sorry about the lamp,” Richard added, “I got most of the busted glass up, but I had to wait till he fell asleep to clean up, because he even after he beat it in armed combat Clint really wanted to throw it out the window and I didn’t want to risk him around a vacuum cleaner.”

“That’s ok,” Natasha said, getting out her wallet (Clint had a _thing_ about vacuum cleaners). “How much do I owe you?”

‘Aw, don’t bother.” Nightwing had his mask back on and was in the process of swinging out the window. “Tell Clint I’ll expect him to babysit Damian sometime, that’ll make us even.”   


End file.
